Anti-semitism Mars Campaign for Judgeship in N.Y. Negro District

November 3, 1964

NEW YORK (Nov. 2)

Open anti-Semitism has entered the election campaign in Harlem, New York’s Negro ghetto, in a fight for a seat on the city’s Civil Court bench, it was revealed here today. The race is being fought by Judge Darwin Telesford, a Negro Democrat, and Judge George Starke, nominated for the court vacancy by a coalition of the Liberal Party and the Republicans in the district embracing Harlem,

James R. Lawson, a Negro who is president of the Harlem Council for Economic Development, has issued a newsletter charging that “Zionists in the Liberal Party” have joined “their ilk in the reform Democratic clubs to repudiate” Judge Telesford’s candidacy.

In his newsletter, Mr. Lawson, who heads another Negro grap, called the United African Nationalist Movement, said that “Zionists” are trying to “increase their grip on our courts.” “By doing so,” he stated, “the Zionists will be able to hand down more favorable decisions to their lawyers, and to enforce the sleazy consumer contracts imposed on black people. The election of Judge Telesford should be the battle of every black man in this city.

Harry Grossman, campaign manager for Judge Telesford, said the latter “repudiates” the Lawson statement and its author. He suggested that “someone” has issued the newsletter in an effort to harm Judge Telesford’s candidacy, saying the statement may have been put out by “someone who is not a friend of Judge Telesford.”